In the mid-fifties Baldwin Park High School was no doubt just like hundreds, no make that thousands, of other high schools around the U.S. There were music clubs, service clubs, athletic clubs and clubs for just about every special interest on every high school campus.

I suppose Baldwin Park was typical in the fact it had several car clubs too: The Deckers. the Nerfers, the Ratchets, the Wambombies the Loafers and the CAL- RODS, just to name a few.

The CAL-RODS Car Club was started in1954 by Don Scurti (a Junior in 1954) on the advice of Clyde Gorsuch so the boys would "have something to do". Mr. Gorsuch had talked to Scurti for almost a year until they finally decided to form a club to teach the boys how to work on their cars and to learn what makes them run.

With Gorsuch as an advisor, Don Scurti and the boys sat down to work out a constitution and set goals for themselves. These fellas were ambitious and they were not going to wait around for someone to give them a recreation center because that was not going to happen, so they started scouting around for a clubhouse. Pete Peterson owned the service station at the corner of Merced and Garvey and he told the boys they could use the old barn at the back of his property if they fixed it up..... Read full story